Marriage and Sexual Intimacy (Jerusalem Declaration 8.1)
Editor’s Note: This is the thirteenth in a series of articles by Dr. Stephen Noll, titled “The Jerusalem Declaration: A Personal Commentary.” Dr. Noll draws on decades of experience in the GAFCON movement, especially his role as Secretary of the Statement group that drafted the Jerusalem Declaration and its accompanying Statement.
We have reached the halfway point in this personal commentary on the Jerusalem Declaration. Clauses 1–7 lay the foundation stones of the Gafcon movement; clauses 8–13 address specific matters arising from the recent crisis that need clarification from Scripture and Anglican tradition as we seek to revive, reform, and reorder a global Anglican Communion.
Sponsored
It may seem an exaggeration to call Clause 8 the “soul” of the Jerusalem Declaration. I shall argue in a supplemental essay why I use that term.
Why Sex?
Given the immediate cause that led from the 1998 Lambeth Conference to the Jerusalem conference in 2008, it should not be surprising that the first clause in this section involves “human sexuality”:
We acknowledge God’s creation of humankind as male and female and the unchangeable standard of Christian marriage between one man and one woman as the proper place for sexual intimacy and the basis of the family. We repent of our failures to maintain this standard and call for a renewed commitment to lifelong fidelity in marriage and abstinence for those who are not married.
Jerusalem Declaration, Clause 8
Many outside the Gafcon movement, and some within it, have asked: “Why are you hung up on sex?” My reply has two parts. First, I will exposit this clause literally, focusing on the meaning of marriage as expressed in the Bible and Prayer Book. In a following essay, I will connect the controversy over sexuality with the wider civilizational question of our time: what does it mean to be human?
Because God…
Creation and Christ’s Witness
The phrase “we acknowledge God’s creation” takes us back to the Bible’s opening chapters: “In the beginning, God created the heaven and the earth.” The creation account reaches its climax in two verses:
So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them.
Gen 1:27
Therefore shall a man leave his father and his mother, and shall cleave unto his wife: and they shall be one flesh.
Gen 2:24 (KJV)
Lest there be any doubt about the fundamental truth of this revelation, our Lord Jesus Christ quotes these verses “from the beginning” and concludes:
“What therefore God hath joined together, let not man put asunder.”
Mark 10:9 (KJV)
The Unchangeable Standard
In speaking of the “unchangeable standard” of marriage, clause 8 is quoting from the 1920 Lambeth Conference:
Recognizing that to live a pure and chaste life before and after marriage is, for both sexes, the unchangeable Christian standard, attainable and attained through the help of the Holy Spirit by men and women of every age, the Conference desires to proclaim the universal obligation of this standard, and its vital importance as an essential condition of human happiness.
Lambeth 1920, Resolution 66
Writing in the immediate aftermath of Lambeth 1998, I asked this rhetorical sequence of questions:
If Lambeth 1920 was correct that marriage is the exclusive and unchangeable Christian standard, then those who repudiate this standard do not stand in the middle way but are outside the bounds of historic Christian (and Anglican) teaching. The question facing the bishops in 1998 was whether the historic standard was changeable. And if this teaching were changeable, what other unchangeable doctrines could be revised by some region or church of the Communion?
Stephen Noll, “Lambeth Speaks Plainly“
Clause 8, Lambeth 1998, the Book of Common Prayer, Genesis, and our Lord himself give the same clear and essential answer:
Christian marriage between one man and one woman [is] the proper place for sexual intimacy and the basis of the family.
Those who deny or undermine this foundational truth place themselves outside the faith once delivered to the saints.
That is the presenting cause of the division—call it schism if you wish—within the Anglican Communion, as the Jerusalem Statement explains and Canterbury has muddied over for seventeen years. Gafcon is not separating from Canterbury over secondary matters but over an essential of the Christian faith. Of course, the Lambeth panjandrums make the claim that they are still upholding the unchangeable standard, while admitting contrary practices on the basis of “good disagreement” – to which I would apply Jesus’ word of rebuke:
“To what shall I compare this generation? It is like children sitting in the marketplaces and calling to their playmates, ‘We played the flute for you, and you did not dance; we sang a dirge, and you did not mourn.’”
Matt 11:16-17
(N.B.: I realize this is a rather obscure quotation, but I believe it is a vivid image and is apt in that it is describing the stubbornness of the Pharisees who closed their ears to John the Baptist and to Jesus. Likewise, the Canterbury apologists are just playing word games while proceeding with their agenda. )
The Purposes of Holy Matrimony
Recovering the Prayer Book Vision
As Chairman of the ACNA Task Force on Marriage, the Family and the Single Life, I was privileged to advise on the service of Holy Matrimony in the Book of Common Prayer 2019 (pages 198–214). We committed ourselves to the language of the 1662 Prayer Book, unlike Common Worship, the Church of England’s alternative service, and sought to restore the Church’s full teaching on marriage’s purposes. After the traditional opening paragraph, “Dearly beloved…” the text enumerates four purposes:
The union of husband and wife in heart, body, and mind was ordained by God: for the procreation of children and their nurture in the knowledge and love of the Lord; for mutual joy, and for the help and comfort given one another in prosperity and adversity; to maintain purity, so that husbands and wives, with all the household of God, might serve as holy and undefiled members of the Body of Christ; and for the upbuilding of Christ’s kingdom in family, church, and society, to the praise of his holy Name.
Procreation, Purity, and Society
These purposes belong together, but procreation rightly comes first. This order follows Scripture (Gen 1:27; 2:24) and the classic Prayer Books, and it addresses a prime controversy of our day: the divorce of sex from procreation. In my commentary Marriage According to the Book of Common Prayer, I wrote:
The sexual union of husband and wife necessarily entails the possibility of conception and birth of children. While the Anglican church does not teach that every sex act must be equally “open to reproduction”—that is Roman Catholic teaching—it does say that marital sex is inherently procreative and that abortion is immoral and contraception is acceptable only in family planning and not in family prevention.
Stephen Noll, Marriage According to the Book of Common Prayer
The third purpose—“the promotion of purity”—while stated more positively than 1662’s “the avoidance of fornication,” does not shrink from the moral divide at stake, as I have noted: “According to the Bible, sex in marriage is right and good, sex outside marriage is sin.” This is the same moral principle undergirding the 1998 Lambeth Resolution.
The fourth purpose—“the upbuilding of society”—is implicit in the English Prayer Book: Christian marriage was a pillar of civil law in England. Today, the West lacks such consensus, despite strong sociological evidence that legal monogamous marriage benefits society, especially children. The 2019 Prayer Book frames marriage’s social benefit as “building up Christ’s kingdom,” a spiritual duty of believers as members of Christ’s Body. For this reason, the church rightly advocates publicly for traditional marriage and related issues, win or lose. Many husbands and wives, parents and children, will serve the King by living faithfully and extending care to the “widows and orphans and sojourners” of our day.
Repenting Our Failures
…We repent of our failures to maintain this standard and call for a renewed commitment to lifelong fidelity in marriage and abstinence for those who are not married.
Some may dismiss the second sentence of clause 8 as a throwaway line: “of course we are all sinners.” But true repentance begins with acknowledging error and includes a purpose to change. Reflecting on my time in Africa and North America, I offer several observations on the shape of that reform. The primary difference is this: for African Christians, marriage remains culturally expected; in North America, it is increasingly counter-cultural.
The African Context
One strength of African marriages is that they unite not only two individuals but two families—often from the same tribe, though increasingly among educated couples from diverse tribal groups. The “introduction” (kwanjula in tribal Uganda) is an elaborate and costly ceremony in which the families identify the intended couple and seal the arrangement with gifts and a bride price. Especially among the poor, the event may become a substitute for marriage itself, with couples cohabiting and postponing marriage indefinitely. For this reason, some bishops have promoted church “mass weddings” for those in “customary marriages” that are quasi-legal and inherently unstable.
The North American Context
From Dating Culture to Conjugal Culture
In contemporary Western culture, by contrast, individuals often begin with sex outside marriage and family. After “being together” semi-formally, the couple may stage a wedding event with self-written vows, while a clergyperson makes things official. Even in church weddings, the pastor or priest often enters the picture late. The rite of Holy Matrimony in the 2019 Prayer Book stands in opposition to this culture, beginning with its instructions and rubrics.
The instruction “Concerning Preparation for Holy Matrimony” (pages 198–199) opens with a theological summary of the “covenantal union of man and woman in marriage” and then says that “great care should be taken to prepare all candidates for Holy Matrimony.” This preparation includes three “Banns of Marriage” and the Declaration of Intention, which states the couple’s agreement with the four purposes of marriage. In my commentary, I proposed using these Banns and Declaration as road signs toward a conjugal culture culminating on the wedding day.
- Courtship – “I might want to marry you.” Encourage young people to look for marriage partners throughout their teen and college years in a healthy culture of dating and waiting.
- Announcing betrothal (engagement) – “I intend to marry you.” Betrothal should be a public matter – so important in African cultures – where the couple takes the formal step of preparing for marriage (Bann 1).
- Graduation from marriage preparation. The priest and couple, along with marriage mentors, announce that school is out and the time is ripe for the wedding (Bann 2).
- The date is set, and the congregation, family, and friends are invited to the church to witness the vows and prayers for the couple and to celebrate the union of husband and wife (Bann 3).
The Wedding as Public Witness
Confirming the quasi-sacramental nature of Christian marriage (Eph 5:32), the first rubric in the service sets the stage for the wedding: “At the time appointed, the persons to be married, with their witnesses and guests, assemble in the church or some other authorized place” (page 201). Such other places, I contend, do not include the South Rim of the Grand Canyon, the parapet of an ancient Scottish castle, or Madison Square Garden (!).
Repenting Divorce
Despite clear biblical teaching and vows of lifelong fidelity, the church has accommodated, in one way or another, the hard reality of divorce in a fallen world. In my short commentary, I put it this way: “Holy Matrimony is unbreakable, but some marriages are broken.” How, then, can a repenting Anglican church signify the brokenness so evident in our culture? After surveying several contemporary options, I proposed an “Office of Penitence and Reconciliation,” which
may be used on occasions where there has been prior brokenness of marital relationships, whether formal or informal, in marital counseling, in renewal of marriage vows, and in preparation for remarriage after divorce as stipulated in the church’s canons.
The Liturgy Task Force is currently considering this office.
Supporting and Celebrating Marriage and the Single Life
Just as God’s purpose for marriage includes “building up the Body of Christ,” the church has both the duty and the joy of building up strong marriages and encouraging the unmarried: young adults seeking marriage, single and celibate believers, separated and divorced individuals, and widows and widowers. The Mothers’ Union, founded in England and flourishing in Africa, offers one example of Christian women upholding the biblical view of marriage. Programs such as Engaged Encounter and Marriage Encounter, which began in Roman Catholic circles, have encouraged couples to step away and renew their marriage vows. Gafcon lists “Women’s Ministry” and “Youth and Family Ministry” among its priorities, but it remains unclear how far these priorities have advanced.
In the second part of this exposition, I wish to build out the implications and applications of the plain sense of clause 8 as it applies to the central doctrine of God’s creating man in his image, male and female.
References
Holy Matrimony Presentation Booklet, including Banns of Marriage and Declaration of Intention (Anglican Liturgy Press, 2018). Includes CD “Wed Talks: What the Church Teaches about Holy Matrimony” by Stephen Noll.
Stephen Noll, Marriage According to the Book of Common Prayer (Anglican House Publishers, 2021).
Image: Photo from a 2005 mass wedding ceremony at Uganda Christian University, courtesy of Stephen Noll. Digitally edited by Jacob Davis. According to Dr. Noll, “We had 14 couples, largely from the campus workers, who responded to our call to regularize their customary relationships.”
Marriage and Mankind (Jerusalem Declaration 8.2)
By linking the “unchangeable standard of Christian marriage” to the creation of humankind as male and female, clause 8 opens a doorway to consider a cluster of related issues concerning human nature.
The Standard of Prayer Book Worship (Jerusalem Declaration 6)
We rejoice in our Anglican sacramental and liturgical heritage as an expression of the gospel, and we uphold the 1662 Book of Common Prayer as a true and authoritative standard of worship and prayer, to be translated and locally adapted for each culture.
